Judgment of a Path: Observer's ReckoningCh 1
by Morath
Summary: The story of a force user, Vonta Horn, that seeks out other force using sectsreligions. Vonta finds her self fighting a losing battle against the Sith only to be transported away from certain death by a new and mysterious race.
1. Default Chapter

**Judgment of a path: Observer's reckoning  
**

**Chapter: 1  
**

Vonta stood ready to die to protect the innocent persons in her care from the ravages of death; death that came in the form of two Sith lords that were steadily overwhelming her with attacks that she could barely counter. That she had only 'just' countered, with consequences.

Her short brown hair, soaked with sweat, was wet and matted to her head. Her armor and clothing were torn and tattered; the Jedi robe that she wore was the only thing that concealed the cuts and lacerations that she had collected. Her eyes, colored green as the sea, were filled with a defiant strength that did not reflect the present state of her being.

Her abilities were waning, and no matter how strong she acted, she was now at the very limit of her stamina. As the two foes moved in for a final attack she saw her own mortality before her eyes.

She perceived the two Sith to move as if they were in a slow motion holo-picture scene; When the evil protagonists smiled with disturbing glee in the moments just before they cut down the antagonist, the tragic hero, with that last, fatal blow. Her silver bladed light saber and Teepo blaster would be batted aside and two blood red blades of light would dismember her.

As she perceived what she saw as her final moments, she became aware of a shimmering aura, an energy that formed around her that began to penetrate her every molecule. She felt some thing like it when phase-shifting through solid matter. When in phase-shift, she could pass her molecules through a solid form by shifting her body's mass slightly into another dimension of space and time.

But, this was different. She was not the one controlling this effect. It was coming from somewhere, 'else', infusing her with energy that she had never encountered before.

She felt an increased in intensity. The energy was pouring into her and, like a rain on a desert, she was quickly becoming saturated. The shimmering appeared to manifest itself in her hands. A light surrounded them sparkled and she could see the ground through them! She was becoming immaterial!

Somehow, someone was trying to end her life or do something to her. She could not allow it. The energy that was trying to claim her was just that, energy. And she was a master of energy manipulation.

She began to absorb the power, taking it into the very core of her being. She flickered for a moment and the shimmering disappeared, returning Vonta to a normal, solid state. Though she stemmed the tide, the flow of energy did not abate. It was as endless as the force. Already at her limit Vonta lost control and began to fade in the shimmering light even faster than before. Vonta was losing the fight against the unknown opponent but she was not willing to go when she knew innocent beings would die in her stead.

Even if it was her place to die here today it was her choice to make. No one had the right to make her leave these people to die alone! As she shimmered into nothing, red light blades passed through thin air where she once stood.

All that the two Sith could hear was the final echo of her last, tortured word.

"No!" the scream echoed through Otta Gunga until it was only a memory.


	2. Judgment of a path: Observer's reckoning...

**Judgment of a path: Observer's reckoning  
**

**Chapter: 2**

Darkness enveloped the Observer Jedi and only a black nothingness was there to greet her. The battered Jedi, Vonta Horn was hurt. The battle with Chikama and his ally had left her drained and perhaps fatally injured. She could not ponder that now, that or the people that she left behind. She winced internally at the fact that all those that were present in the city would shortly be dead.

Regardless of her emotions, she could only concern herself with what had happened now, in the present moment, even if it pained her to do so. 

_Did Chikama finally do me in? _ She thought to herself.

_Am I dead? _It was the one thought that concerned her at that moment. The last thing that she remembered was...

_What was it..._ She tried to recall but there was a cloud over her mind, _did a light saber or stray disrupter bolt end my life?_

_That would indeed explain it._ She analyzed the situation in her own way, deciphering the answer with a likely hypothesis in her mind.

A disrupter bolt would have vaporized everything in its path, disintegrating any matter at to the molecular level.

_No, if it caught me it could have vaporized the entirety of my body. The force energies would have been set free from my body and I would be one with the force._ She concluded.

She continued her inner dialogue; _But this cannot be the force. The force is filled with life. All my experiences tell me this. With every use of the force I can feel the life of all things around me that make up the force. This...this...place, if it truly was a place as I know it in a matter anti matter universe, was a void, with nothing within it. It cannot be the force because of the absence of life energies. Then what...  
_

Her thoughts slowed and dwindled as she recalled the foreign energy that she felt in the underwater, Gungan city. She recalled the glimmer of her body as she felt herself being taken by some unidentified foe.

_Why? Why would anyone do such a thing?_ Then it dawns on her with a single thought. _Krath._

The dark force beings that were gathering a cult of force users to work their evil through.

The Krath lived in the force. Vonta theorized that they were sentient manifestations of the force when it was used by darksiders. They were dark force entities that lived to corrupt force sensitive beings into doing their bidding. In the cult of the, Krath most members were acting as brainwashed servants that became the hands and feet of the krath in this dimension. Recently the cult had started a campaign of terrorism, using explosives to cause havok at key places. Force sensitive individuals were used as pawns in their sick game. With their particular powers they could make a force sensitive being into one of their disciples. They had almost succeeded in taking Vonta. Who avoided becoming a Krath, and a fall to the darkside of the force that would have entailed, by a hairs breath.

The memory of that encounter was foggy but the emotions she felt were vividly seared in her mind.

"Krath cannot, they will not have me!" She screamed out loud.

At least she tried to speak. She found that she could not make a sound. She tried again.

No sound escaped her lips. In fact, she could not tell if she was moving her lips at all. She tried to move her arms closely followed by the rest of her body.

She could not move at all! Not one centimeter!

_What is happening! What manner of force power is this! _ She screamed in her mind in the absence of a vocal outlet.

This oblivion held her body in stasis yet allowed her mind to roam free. Wherever she was going she was going; be it to another place or to her death, she would have to ride this particular conveyance to its end.


	3. Judgment of a path: Observer's reckoning...

**Judgment of a path: Observer's reckoning  
**

**Chapter: 3**

It seemed like an eternity that Vonta floated in the dark void of her shapeless, lightless, prison.

She could not move one muscle in this...other place. Perhaps it truly was some other dimension, like the one that she used to phase her body slightly into when she used the force skill phase-shift. Perhaps this was a consequence of using such a power? It was as likely an answer as any that she had thought of.

All at once there was a familiar tingling sensation in her body. She felt the energy that pulled her from the middle of Otta Gunga flowing in her again. She felt it slowly empty from every molecule of her body, like a vase slowly drained of water. She gained more consciousness of her body with each increment of energy that leaked from her. Synapses in her mind reconnected with the body; first her bones, followed by her nervous system, the internally organs, muscle fibers, and finally her outer epidermis layer.

The energies were nearing the empty point. When her body held no more, in the moment that she felt the energy leave completely. She felt an atmosphere form around her body. She materialized in mid-air, and when solidity was accomplished gravity took its hold on her and she fell hard to the ground, crumpling under the weight of her own body. Ungracefully placing her on the floor with a painful thud that resounded with an echo through the accommodations.

Immediately her injuries became apparent with jolts of pain all over. She used the force to bring her senses into focus and to dull the effects of her injuries so that she remained able to face this new unknown.

The place she landed was light by only a single beam that only lit the area immediately around her. Every thing around her was pitch black. Her robe was a mess, one shoulder was hanging by a few threads and it was covered with slash marks left over from light saber and dagger cuts. Concealing lacerated skin beneath the ragged folds.

She pushed herself up from a face down position she crawled to her feet. Each boot step echoed in her new accommodations as she gained footing. She was in some kind of cavernous room. That much she could surmise from the echo. The area around her was dimly lit. All that she could see was the ground around her and that was stone like and colored a brick red.

From the darkness around her she heard a soft rustling. Signifying things that were moving in the dark.

"Who is there?" She said out loud, although quite weakly.

No answer came. Only unfamiliar sounds of animal like noises. She felt danger from behind. Instantly she drew her Teepo blaster. She was too weak to manage any other defense. She pointed it in the general direction of the threat. Hand poised to pull the trigger when she felt the blaster becoming incorporeal in her grip; it sparkled briefly and then vanished.

She stood there in battle worn clothing. With her hand, curved to conform to a gun, holding only air. Bewilderment showed in her eyes. Realizing in an instant that she was at a huge tactical disadvantage. The captors were able to teleport matter, or disintegrate it with a precision that she had never seen before, she thought that the latter was implausible seeing as her hand would have been lost with the weapon. Cautiously lowering the lightsaber in her other hand and making sure that she was careful to be as non-threatening as possible. Holding it with only two fingers, she laid it on the ground closely followed by her Aiki Akendo wooden sword that had been sheathed on her back.

She came up from kneeling and her weapons disappeared. From all around her she heard the echoing of clicks, clacks and other variable, high-pitched noises.

"I have no quarrel with whoever you are." She holds her hands up to emphasize her passivity, "I am a Jedi, sworn to protect the innocent. To harm another without provocation is not in my code of conduct."

She had no idea if they understood her but she had to say something.

"_You are a Jedi?"_ An unknown voice spoke in basic.

She looked curiously at the group. No, she still only heard the curious noises all about her and there was no echo in the voice she heard. They were using telepathy. A force power to be sure, but there were races that could use telepathy as well. She was not sure if these people were force users. She felt nothing from the living beings around her to indicate any force sensitivity. Then again, this could just mean that they knew how to mask them selves with the force.

"Yes, as I said, I am a trained Jedi." She answers.

The voice continued. "_But are you not also a member of the Jensaarai and of the endangered Aiki tradition?"  
_

There was a moment of hesitation from Vonta before she could find her voice again. Whoever her captors were, they had been well informed. She could not lie about such things. She turned to face the speaker.

Or where she felt that the speaker's voice came from.

"I am a member of those orders as well." She answered yet again.

There was a louder chitter around her that was silenced by a more powerful one.

"_You claim to be of many orders and yet you answer to Jedi? This is not possible to be all and yet one." _Came the rhetorical remark.

Vonta was tired of this questioning game, "Yes I study the old ways and make them my own. That is my way and my mission as a Jedi...uhhh..." She trailed off as her injuries caught up with her, causing a wave of dizziness to pass over her.

Regaining her composer, "I...I am a seeker of the old ways as it is demanded of me by the force. Now I well not answer any more of your questions until you tell me who you are and why you have brought me here!"

There was silence for a moment. Vonta stood in the spotlight that surrounded her and prevented her from seeing anything out side of a ten-meter boundary set by the light. The light was restored to normal settings used by most sentient and, for a moment, she was blinded. She blinked at the light as her pupils dilated to accommodate the heightened intensity of the light.

What came to focus was a strange sight. In her journeys she had never seen such creatures as those that sat in the seats before her.

These beings looked more akin to animals then sentients. They looked as if they were built to be quadrupedal, though they sat up right in their seats. Their heads and bodies were generously covered in bone-like plates that seemed to be natural. Their eyes were large, easily the size of her fist. Large eyes meant keen night sight. No wonder they did not mind the darkness. She saw that each had a third appendage that was only just visible behind them, flapping about in some fashion, as covered in bony plates as the rest of the body. It could be a tail or another arm. Several tongue like appendages around the mouth area seemed to be making the noise that she heard.

There were ten of them, total. One in particular stood up from its seat, the rest regarded him with quiet respect. A long, white beard and a certain nobility of posture set him apart from the rest. Beside him sat her light saber and other weapons that were teleported away.

"_We are the Aing-Tii, guardians of the Kathol rift and defenders of the force. We have been watching you Ms. Horn from the first time that you felt that your calling was to seek out the old ways. Seeking them out and finding them with, shall we say, far too much success."_ He looked at her weapons, all devices that were as deadly as they were advanced through the force, before continuing. "_Some secrets from the past are best left buried. With that in mind we brought you here to learn if you are worthy of wielding the secrets you may find in the coming days."_

_The Aing-Tii!_ She thought with great surprised shock. She had heard whisperings about them in her studies but she never expected to find any. _But why bring me here...  
_

She wanted to ask them but she felt the last of her force stamina waver and she fell forward into unconsciousness.


	4. Judgment of a path: Observer's reckoning...

**Judgment of a path: Observer's reckoning**

**Chapter 4**

Days, hours, minutes. It was all the same to Vonta as she woke from a dreamless sleep.

At the moment cognitive thought is restored she bolted up right.

Glancing from side to side she found that she was in a place other then that cavernous hall. It appeared to be a small room. A fluorescent type of off white light illuminated the room from a singular source on the ceiling. It was circular, with a diameter of roughly 15 meters. She was laid out in a bed and was covered only with a blanket that she clutched close to her to cover her bare chest. In front of her was a doorway shaped like an arch.

The layout of the room struck her as curious, it was more organic then technological. But the analysis of the new architectural style would have to wait. She gathered her blankets so that the form a robe. She turns and rises from the bed as quietly as possible.

The ease in which she arose surprised her. Last thing she remembered was passing out from injuries so dire that even the reinforcement of the force was not enough to keep her conscious.

"_Escape is not a recommended course of action Ms. Horn._"

Turning on her left foot she faces the unexpected presence that speaks to her. It stood where moments ago no one had been.

Holding her makeshift robe of a blanket; with one hand she strikes a defensive stance. On the other side of the bed sits one of the mysterious animal-like Aing-tii. The voice in Vonta's head was feminine. She saw several of them before but she could not identify any distinct sexual differences.

She eyes this being before her, she could take this one hostage and then,

"_Fighting me is not recommended either."_ The female voice speaks anticipating Vonta's intentions.

"Consider this, if you managed to get past me what would you do? Find an escape pod to get a message to allies? Fight off every last one of us until you gain control of this vessel?" She let a silence hang in the air to allow the human to consider her words.

"_How do you expect to run from a capture that kidnapped you from thousands of light years away?"_

Vonta had no words to answer that question, for this sentients argument was sound. There was no place to run from a race of teleporters. She drops her defensive posture. Her body became more relaxed and her free hand falling beside her thigh.

"I would at least like to know why I am naked and where my clothes are." She states in resignation of her current situation.

"_I knew that you would be a smart one."_ Came the lilting female voice that spoke in Vonta's mind.

"_You were injured when you arrived and we had to heal you. It was necessary to remove your clothing."  
_

The female raised her hand gesturing at the bed. A space of air shimmered for a moment and then solidified into a small bundle.

"_Your clothing is mended as well as we could manage._"

Vonta went to the bundle finding her undergarments, pants shoes, robe, and even her cortosis body armor. Upon closer examination she saw that it all looked brand new, as if it had never seen the combat that had left if in total disrepair when she last wore them.

She glances at her captor indicating that she would like to dress without a pair of eyes watching.

"_Ah yes of course."_ The female Aing-tii looked away as Vonta dressed her self.

That done she continues on.

"Now, Aing-tii," She experiments with the word still perplexed that the mysterious race would seek her out, "I demand to know what business you have with me that would justify kidnapping me?"

"_Your mission of course."_ She answers as a matter of factuality.

"My mission?" The human answered.

There was a brief silence the, armor-plated head and large eyes seemed to wonder off into thought for a moment before continuing. "_You seek out what was lost and what more you seek it out with the guidance of the force. The force has many shades and has existed for as long as life has roamed the galactic spanses. There were those that harnessed the force before any of the current orders began. In these times the force was used and harnessed as a weapon in many cases, with unbridled destructive potential. Other darker sects have powers that are so horrible that they are best left lost. You seek to find all that is lost so far you have found that which is connected to the light. But we must be sure that you are ready for the trials that you well face in the future._"

The human Jedi took in every word digesting each consequence and meaning. "And should I prove unworthy?"

The female looked away. "_We well cross that path when, or if, it comes to that."  
_

Vonta thought back upon where she had been when she was pulled to this place, "Are those that let others die to satisfy their own judgments, are they then worthy?"

She bore the question in the air, contempt for her captors evident in her rhetorical question. The Aing-tii were serving some higher purpose. A purpose so high that they considered themselves above saving lives. Beings like this that made such judgments were, in her experience the most dangerous and unpredictable beings of all.

The Female Aing-tii made no remark on Vonta's question of ethics, _"Come the council has summoned you._"

The archway door slides open. And Vonta exits her quarters with an ominous feeling in her gut.


	5. Judgment of a path: Observer's reckoning...

**Judgment of a path: Observer's reckoning**

**Chapter 5**

The steady, percussive 'thump-bump' of combat boots was all that Vonta, the Observer Jedi, could hear on her way to this court of the Aing-Tii that was about to judge her. The female Aing-tii that accompanied her moved soundlessly as if she were not even there. The shear size of this creature seemed to belie its grace. She was a rather large creature. Vonta would estimate her to weigh in at around 300 to 600 pounds.

The garments she wore felt slightly heavier. That told her that the gravity here was more then the galactic average. She shakes her head. Observations about her captor's biology can wait for another time, now she must focus on her current situation.

She was being judged for the crime of her being a seeker of the old ways. No, not really judged in the sense that she committed a crime. She was being judged at her worthiness to use that knowledge that she discovered wisely.

Taking up a position directly behind her escort she stared at the sentient burning a figurative hole in her head. This one that she followed, when asked about the consequences of failing to meet the standards of the Aing-tii avoided directly answering the question of what her fate would be if she proved unworthy.

That could mean any number of things. From death, to an exile to some uncharted planet, to merely being watched and forced into complying in the future. None of those options suited her well.

They had been walking for ten minutes when they came to another arched doorway not unlike that of her quarters.

She entered and immediately noticed the echo of her footsteps as she took her first steps inside. The harmonics of this room were amazing to the Observer. Light click-clacking sound her army boots were magnified so that it resounded with brilliant clarity in the space.

Even the barest whisper was brought out into the open. That applied to all present. There was also the steady clicking and high-pitched noises that she had heard upon her arrival and assumed made up the Aing-tii language.

The lights brightened and she found herself in the center of a circle of seated Aing-Tii. This was the very spot that she first arrived. Injured and barely conscious.

The female Escort spoke telepathically, Vonta assumed that it is for her benefit.

"_Good members of the council,"_ She waved her hand in a semi-circle to include all ten of the seated Aing-tii, _"I come before you today to defend the accused, Observer Jedi Vonta Horn on the count of seeking out the ancient and lost ways of the force."_

The largest of the ten seated near the center of the council makes a formalized, _"Very well Adjudicator, advocate for the defense. We, the Council of Ten, recognize this Observer Jedi's right to a defense. Please begin."  
_

Vonta was perplexed. This female was her defense counsel? But she did not say much anything about her stance since the started talking just minutes ago. How was she to defend herself if she did not know what the count is as stated by the council?

She grimaced this was going to be a very trying proceeding.


End file.
